At close range, McGuire’s playing was astounding. I often think of the acoustic guitar as a small-sounding instrument, but on its own, in a room that could not have held far more than 20 people, it was a mighty force. If I was struck by the depth of McGuire’s sound, and the length of its natural decay within the guitar’s resonant body, I was literally stunned by the contrast between the softness of his touch in more ruminative passages and the brutality of his rapid strums on multiple strings and alarming raps on the guitar’s body. I could feel the fire and passion in his playing, and imagine how vividly his renowned Flamenco dancer wife converts that fire into movement.